MY SHORT LIST

I read Hot Source this month (July ’16) and decided to apply some reasonable selection criteria to determine how many of the 400 new cars I’d really spend my hard-earned on.

First, no silly money cars – always better to invest in your family’s future than a depreciating asset, no matter how desirable.

Don’t buy an overpriced Skoda or Toyota (goodbye luxo brands) and let’s aim for a car that has some design nous - sorry to say, but goodbye BMW. No silly fast SUVs. Who drives fast with kids in the car or wants to thrash a car on stilts when they’re not?

And no cars that fall apart after a few years. Ahem, Italy and France (from personal experience). Avoid some great cars that are sadly disappearing soon – sorry Oz – and avoid companies that have prioritised profits ahead of integrity and trust.

Bang For Your Buck is a given – we are MOTOR readers after all. And finally, you need an old-school manual for proper driving fun. Who wants to drive the Old Pacific Highway north of Sydney without a proper gearbox? Not many, I hope.

So of the 400 cars in Hot Source, it appears the only ones you need to print each month are the Ford Focus RS, Mazda MX-5 and Porsche Boxster or Cayman. There you go, I just saved you the need to print 12 pages in your next issue. Space enough for another one or two of your great stories. Keep up the great work.

Thanks, Rick, we appreciate this generous and altruistic approach. We better keep printing and updating all 400, though, just in case not every reader shares your very select criteria.